God, I really hate how disconnected "Other games" is from general discussion, I almost missed this. Hope it's not too late to donate. I have officially read the rules.
Anyway, I'm gonna sign up as a
doner. For December 31st, I'm throwing
Zero Ranger into the pot this time. I was flabbergasted by its quality when I got it from last year's give away, so I thought I'd give someone else a chance to have that experience.
If you want a pitch, I would describe
Zero Ranger as a side-scrolling shootem-up/bullet-hell for the modern era. If you so much as have a passing interest in those games where you play as a spaceship/animegirl dodging and shooting wave after wave of bullets and enemies (eg. Galaga, R-type, tohou, Ikaruga, parts of Nier Automata), then I consider Zero Ranger to be a must play.
New to bullet-hells? Don't worry. Most of the infamy of that genre comes from pros uploading videos of themselves beating the game on max difficulty. Bullet-hells are designed for the average player with a reasonable difficulty curve, like any other game.
Give Zero Ranger a chance and you'll be hooked from the moment you press START. The game will then keep you engaged not just by its solid understanding of pacing, flow and spectacle, but also by rewarding you at the end of a level with brand new weapons that meaningfully change your options in future fights. Other shmups have power ups, but these just add so much more depth to the game! Everything Zero Ranger does is done with such an intense level of polish that it sets a new standard for the genre.
If you'll only ever play one shoot-em-up in your life, you should play Zero Ranger! If you have some nostalgia for the shoot-em-up genre, you should play Zero Ranger! If you want to find out what the [SPOILERS] are, you should play Zero Ranger!
I hope that fanaticism doesn't scare people off, but honestly I'm more worried about the short notice.
Another game I'm gonna offer on the 31st is
Noita.
I'm sure we all know about this witchy wizard-like, but I've started playing it again recently and been having a good time. I'll keep the pitch short though: What if you took that weird POWDER game you played as a child, and turned it into 2d-sidescrolling Nethack? There's Elbereths aplenty, and the magic system is even more complicated than the chemistry system.